That pilot is a new part of a multi-faceted and nationally-celebrated program out of Little Falls to tackle addictions to prescription pain medications and heroin. Agencies there formed a prescription drug abuse task force. And the clinic has a Controlled Substance Care Team.

Doctors from CHI St. Gabriel’s Health shared their successes with federal officials from the House and Senate in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. The Minnesota Legislature has also approved $1 million to help other communities tackle opioid abuse as Little Falls has.

The Little Falls team spurred a reduction in the number of pain pills in circulation and pain patients there. Before the program, pain was the number one reason people visited the emergency room, now it's not even in the top 20 reasons for an ER visit.

St. Gabriel's Dr. Kurt DeVine helped establish the program with a state grant in 2014. Dr. Heather Bell joined the program a year later. The two were in D.C. this week. Their medical team looks at pain patients, case by case, to determine if those patients are suitable for powerful pain medications.

The doctors explore other prescriptions for the patients and recreational drug use, then make recommendations to the patients' primary care doctors. The team also connects patients with a social worker when needed.

Other community members are involved as well, from the police department and the Morrison County Sheriff's Office to local pharmacies.

"I'm on the ground. I get to see the prescriptions being filled," said Gary Sperl, general manager at Coborn's Pharmacy in Little Falls. "You witness the ebb and flow of problems."

Sperl has been in the community for 30-plus years and cooperated with police throughout that time, including the era of pseudoephedrine abuse, when Sudafed and other cold medications were readily purchased to support illegal methamphetamine production.

Now the issue is with opioids. Sperl will talk with inmates about drug use in the Morrison County Jail. Pharmacists in the area also stopped filling prescriptions early, Sperl said, to reduce a flow of extra pills. They're meant to last 30 days.

Officers used to find people with pill bottles that didn't belong to them, said Jason McDonald, an investigator in the Morrison County Sheriff's Department. They'd be selling and snorting prescription pills. Those pill addicts eventually made their way to heroin, which is cheaper and easier to get, McDonald said.

"We've seen a decrease in the number of pills we're able to purchase when we're under cover," he said. "We're going to prevent creation of new addicts."